


The Parting Gift

by deviltakehimback



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, berena - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 03:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8129072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deviltakehimback/pseuds/deviltakehimback
Summary: So Bernie sods off to Kiev. Serena receives a mysterious parcel by courier the next morning.





	

Serena left for the evening, bereft and at a loss for everything. Her journey home flew by; it was a wonder she hadn’t crashed the car. She wasn’t really taking anything in. Not since she’d watched Bernie walk off the ward to catch a waiting cab.

“It’s for the best,” she’d said. Sod that. Whose best? Certainly not Serena’s. And most likely not Bernie’s either. 

Serena did have a sneaking suspicion that there was more going on. Evidently, Bernie had agreed to the contract before she’d even spoken to Serena. So there was that. Bernie would have signed her time away, and her pride wouldn’t let her back out on it. Not after she’d turned down that commission in Afghanistan. Not even if Serena poured her heart out (as she had) and hoped against hope that fate was on her side.

She schooled her features as she trundled in the front door of her house, wary of putting Jason off his routine. Any attempts she might have made to avoid him were headed off, however, as he called out to her. He'd heard the door snap closed.

“You’re thirteen minutes late!”

The takeaway would have arrived about ten minutes before she had. She could smell the vinegar from the front door. The thought of fish and chips at that moment was one of the least appealing things Serena could have been faced with, and she felt a vague nausea wash over her.

But it was still altogether more enticing than the sight of Bernie, gaze decidedly avoiding Serena’s, as she stepped into that bloody taxi. Her hair had fallen over her face, then, and despite everything Serena still found herself thinking it utterly breath-taking.

Serena dropped her handbag on the kitchen counter and didn’t bother to take her coat off before sitting down next to Jason. He pushed a plate towards her and piled it with chips.

“Did Bernie say goodbye to you?” he asked, the picture of innocence. Serena was a little stunned by the question. How did he know she was gone? She didn’t get a chance to ask before he continued.

“She phoned me this afternoon to tell me she was going away,” he said, pausing with a chip held in midair, “which was odd because she’s never phoned me before but I still answered it.” He popped the chip in his mouth and picked up another.

“She also said she’d send me postcards from Kiev, which is three hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time until the end of October, and then it changes with daylight savings time and it’s two hours ahead.” Serena wondered how he knew that, too. And why she didn’t. “She said we could arrange a phone call by email if I wanted to tell her about _World’s Strongest Man_ but she should be back before the 2016 competition even takes place.”

“Really?” Serena heard the word leave her, though she wasn’t sure she’d said it. Why was Bernie calling her nephew?

“Is she going to send you postcards too?” He asked, looking past Serena into the kitchen. “We’ll need to get more magnets for the fridge.”

Serena mostly zoned him out after that, grease from the chipper doing wonders to drown her sorrows. It would be good soakage, if she could even face a bottle of wine.

As it was, she excused herself after eating half of her fish, and plodded up the stairs. The sting of mouthwash gave her a burst of energy, enough to spur her on to change out of her work clothes. She didn’t bother turning on the lights. Guided only by the glare of her phone, she made her way to bed. Head on her pillow, she tried and failed to quiet her mind. 

Bernie was gone.

 

For who knew how long.

 

To Kiev.

 

In the _fucking_ Ukraine.

 

And here she was, miserable and confused and not even bothered getting drunk. What the hell was wrong with her?

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The courier arrived to the AAU at 8.38am the next day, handing Raf a bulbous brown package addressed to one Dr. Serena Campbell. He signed for it, and hobbled with it to Serena’s office, placing it gently onto her desk when he realised she wasn’t yet in.

When she did arrive a few minutes later, he timidly waved at her and pointed towards the office. 

“Something arrived for you,” he said, not missing the glassy look in her eyes as she passed him by, barely seeming to notice that he had spoken.

 

 

\- - -

 

 

The office. Her office. Their office. Her office, again.

It looked so empty now with Bernie’s things gone, Serena wanted to cry. As if she hadn't done enough of that in the dark of the night before. She wouldn’t let herself, though, not yet. Not here. Not with colleagues already bursting with the latest news, the greatest scandal in the last four days of Holby City gossip.

It wasn’t even good gossip. They hadn’t even _slept_ together. She was almost ashamed of how tame it all was.

She was pulled from her thoughts, her attention ruthlessly grabbed by the bizarre package on her desk. She approached it with care, not discounting the possibility of it being an explosive of some kind; her life had gone sufficiently poorly in the past day that she suspected nothing could surprise her.

She was wrong.

She recognised the scrawl instantly, spelling her name out in looped letters on the attached envelope.

_Bernie._

Hesitantly, she pulled at the envelope, extracting the waiting card.

 

_Dear Serena,_

_I have been foolish, and I completely understand if you hate me; I certainly would._

_This may seem odd, but I realised that I left you... us... on terrible terms.  
I was packing and I’d like you to have these things in my absence. In case of emergency. _

_I don’t deserve you, and you deserve an awful lot better than me._

_I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. ~~I’m  I'll be~~_

_  
Yours,_

_Bernie_

 

_P.S. You’re under specific instruction not to open this until you get home._

Serena read the note three times. What the hell was Bernie doing? This was a shit apology if ever Serena had seen one, and she’d dealt with Edward for years.

She hated that her heart still skipped a beat, knowing that Bernie had thought of her, had sent her something, had reached out despite their last encounter.

She hated that she was excited to open whatever this monstrosity was.

She hated that she couldn’t even bring herself to hate Bernie Wolfe.

 

\- - -

 

That night, she enlisted the help of a porter to carry the parcel to her car. In her defense, she couldn't really see where she was walking when she held it, so getting a porter to assist was merely a means of watching out for her wellbeing.

That, and she was sure she'd rip it open if she held it herself, impatience gnawing at her. The porter obliged her and deposited his burden in the boot of her car. 

 

\- - - 

 

 

She warred with herself when she arrived home, dropping the package into the living room and storming the kitchen for wine; her appetite had returned and she had some catching up to do. Foregoing a glass, she carried the bottle back with her and grabbed the bundle, hefting it up the stairs with her. It wasn't heavy but it was awkward, its weight off-centre. 

Taking a decent swig from her bottle, she sized up the brown paper and twine that held the package together. One tug on the string and the knots unravelled, falling away from the paper. Serena nudged at the wrapping, then, willing it to unfurl itself. 

She took another drag from the wine bottle and set it on the bedside locker, sitting next to the package as she pulled the paper away from its contents. 

She smelled it before she realised what she was smelling. 

Every person has a scent. Some people, frequently in emergency rooms, smell like urine and cheap beer. Some people smell like pine or lavender, others smell like whatever washing powder they use, and others still smell like their pets. 

Bernie Wolfe smelled like spring time. There was always something crisp about her, something completely fresh and distinctly floral that woke Serena up better than any amount of coffee ever could. It reminded her of snowdrops.

And now Serena's bedroom was beginning to fill with the familiar scent and her head was spinning. She pulled at the wrapping in front of her, tugging at the fabric underneath until she held it in her lap. She stared down at Bernie's grey hospital hoody, fingers playing at the  _NHS_ embroidered on the chest. 

The other contents of the bundle caught her eye, then, and she pulled out Bernie's old scrubs from Keller, and her deep blue AAU uniform. Amongst the fabric, she unearthed a sealed bottle of whiskey and two small glass tumblers. She also found three distinct military medals that she didn't recognise, but she knew she would guard them with her life. 

Rummaging in the papers, she found one final item: one small, round bottle of what could only be Bernie's perfume. 

Serena lay everything out in front of her, overwhelmed on multiple levels. Her wine forgotten, she edged herself onto the bed and lay herself down in the centre, Bernie's hoody clutched to her chest. 

Oh, no. She didn't hate Bernie Wolfe at all. But she was going to give her a proper earful whenever she figured out the time difference.

 

 

 

 


End file.
